


The New Meaning Of Together

by SnitchNightly



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, by somebody i mean me, fatt rare pair swap, somebody got way too emotional while writing this tbh......, sorry its so short!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 11:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14769131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnitchNightly/pseuds/SnitchNightly
Summary: After the Miracle, they stay uncertain at the edge of the Mirage, waiting for Crystal Palace to decide there were more important things than a manhunt. Demani Dusk finds things to do in the dark, and Grey Gloaming holds her. Through all of it.





	The New Meaning Of Together

**Author's Note:**

> written for the FatT rarepair swap for @sasha_reneau on twitter using the prompts hurt comfort involving repairs and kind of the trope falling asleep on each other if you stretch it a little bit. Hopefully I interpreted the prompt right, mechanical repairs in hurt comfort is something I have a big soft spot for and honestly I kinda wish I leaned into it more but... I may have put on the TM soundtrack while writing and got really emotional about our good lesbians and how one of them is a spaceship and what that like... means. Its a little on the short side which I apologize for, I feel like adding any more would have just been... more Demani waxing poetic about being in love with a spaceship and the concept of intimacy? Which. I don't think. This needs. more... of... since theres already..... a lot............. oops.................... 
> 
> also I have no idea if I wrote Gray or Grey consistently in this and I'm honestly too scared to go check so i'm just going to hit post and pray.

“Primary.” 

In the dim yellow of the ships emergency lighting, Demani Dusk tried to guess at what the label on her screwdriver read, and if it would work on the bolts lining the damaged access panel. 

“Go to bed. I’m a spaceship, Demani, I won’t bleed out.”

She huffed and ignored the voice over the intercom, reaching past a hole that had been blasted in the piece of metal to find the release mechanism. 

“You know I hate it when you do that.” 

Greys voice was measured and thoughtful, but there was an undertone there that meant Demani was no longer allowed to pretend the conversation wasn't happening, no matter how much she wanted to.

“Do what, Satelite?” 

“Act like you can’t hear me. I knew you were doing it on purpose- You’re not nearly as slick as you think you are.”

Demani laughed quietly, and sat back heavily on the hallway floor, pressing the heel of her hand to her temple.   
“The fact that you have access to my heart rate from there is an unfair advantage.”   
“Demani!” “Grey.”

Grays synthetic voice sighed over the intercom. “How much longer are you staying up?”   
“Until the hull is fixed.”  
“Just this part, or the rest of it too?”

She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and dragged them down her face, inevitably smearing grease on her cheek.

“What's that supposed to mean, exactly?”  
“Are you planning on fixing the whole ship tonight? What’s next, engine maintenance? Upgrading the coffee machine? You need to sleep, Demani. We both know how you get.” 

Demani just sat there for a moment, lit by the dull glow of the floor lighting. It was like someone had just politely reminded her body how tired it was. The wrench in her hand felt like an anchor on an old ship- heavy metal and dead weight. Her eyelids drooped, but only for a moment before they snapped back open.   
“...Alright. Just this last one. Then I’ll try to get some rest.” The lights flickered on around her, and Grey laughed.

“You- goddammit, Grey, you said those were out! You could have done something sooner.”   
Grey, still laughing, responded “I could, but you’d be up all night if I did, and the look on your face was pretty fantastic, so I have no regrets.” 

Demani grumbled under her breath.  
“You always think look on my face is always fantastic.”

Grey’s laughter filled the hallway again as Demani kept pace with her rhythmic removal of bolts and nails.

It took about 20 minutes to repair the panel, but Demani made it last 35. When Grey was concentrated on other things and Demani found herself in a weaker moment, it felt lonely. The ship was Grey, but at the same time, the ship was a ship.   
You couldn’t double check for the rise and fall of a ships chest. You couldn't see a ship wince when it was hurt.

Neither Gray nor Demani had any regrets. These times though, late in the self imposed day cycle, when things went quiet and Demani was the only breathing thing in miles, like Grey said… they both knew how she got. 

“I shouldn't be saying this, Satellite. Its selfish- I was going to say how frustrating it is to be stuck in this tiny metal box. I know you’re in the same boat, I just… Do you ever wish something on your station would break just so you can fix it? There's so much Crystal Palace says we can’t fix, Grey, and I… I believe them but on nights like this I wish I didn't. On nights like this I just feel useless.” 

That recording went in a discreet drive with the rest of messages she’d never send. Space could get very quiet without the sound of your own voice. 

Grey never said it outright, but Demani knew she made sure to be a presence in the room, even outside of her humanoid chassis. The lights dimmed and flickered as they talked together, in the silence between words the whir of coolant fans mixed with Greys voice, humming absentmindedly. 

Demani fought off sleep to tighten the last screw. Refastening the panel, she grunted as she pulled herself off the ground and putting the last wrench back where she’d found it in. The overhead lights dimmed again as the two lines of soft yellow emergency lighting on each side of the path flickered on, pointing to the room she slept in. 

“I get it, Satellite, I’m going.” Demani chuckled  
The path lights by her feet glowed brighter in acknowledgment.

Everything was quiet as Demani got ready for bed. From an outsider's perspective, she was alone on the ship- for miles outside of it as well, hiding out until crystal palace had more important things to do than track them. 

Without intel, who knew how long that would be... 

The windows darkened on their own, cutting the hazy pink and orange glow of the mirage down to just a ghost of light through the glass.   
Demani was too tired to talk, and Grey could tell, like always. How strange the pair of them must look in times like this, to anyone on Quire, or the fleet, or the hegemony. Even in the rapid evening there would be questions. 

So much of partnership, so much of domesticity is built on presence. We anchor ourselves in things that tell us, without a shadow of a doubt, that someone is safe and on our side. 

And yet- 

She had watched countless times as she hit upload, as data that she could not see was beamed at a speed she could not comprehend to a place she had never been and to a person that she had never ‘really’ met. For someone who was raised on surety, on throwing all trust into Crystal Palaces predictions because they had never been wrong before, doubt was a terrifying thing- any semblance of assurance, of proof of reality- tactile, obvious, visible proof -should have been the first thing she reached for in the dark.

But it wasn't. Because that's not how love works. 

The cabin lights dimmed all the way as Demani crawled under the covers of their bed. And it was their bed- Greys chassis stood tucked neatly away just to the side of the room, its charging indicator the only light left in the room. She didn't actually sleep in the bed. Usually, while Demani slept, Grey turned her attention to piloting the ship and keeping an eye on the Mirage as it changed, wild and rapid. 

But for the two of them, presence wasn’t tied to the physical- it hadn’t been for a long time. 

For so long, hearing her voice was enough. As soon as Demani clicked play, as soon as she heard Grey call her ‘Primary’ from so incomprehensibly far away, it was enough. 

They spoke in a language all their own. These tiny movements- Greys chassis blinking in the dark, the static on the recording when Demani hit play- those were enough. 

Demani didn’t need words to know she was loved. She didn’t need a body on the bed beside her. She didn’t need proof in the way so many of us think about it- that night, floating in an abandoned corner of space as the fabric of reality and time shifted around them, Demani slept within minutes.

And Grey Gloaming held her not with arms, but with four walls and a steady, blinking power light light. 

That amount of trust, that unspoken foundation they had built was more steady than the monotonous work of observation, was more sure than the predictions of Crystal Palace, was more a promise of presence than anything that could be given by physical contact. 

For two people who had learned to question everything, there was one thing that was never doubted- that they were loved.  
The nature of time changed- the mirage twisting around them through powers unseen and unknown- and Demani Dusk and Grey Gloaming held tight to the one thing that they had found to be infallible-  
Each other.


End file.
